Dissertation Research: Male Tactics and Female Mate Choice in Captive Savanna Baboons

近年来，越来越多的研究致力于考察雌性在灵长类性关系中选择配偶的重要性。然而，我们对女性择偶的理解是有限的，因为很难将女性择偶的影响与可能影响女性择偶的男性行为的影响区分开来。例如，来自许多非人类灵长类物种的证据表明，由于涉及咄咄逼人的排斥竞争对手和对雌性的性胁迫的雄性策略，雌性在表达交配偏好方面受到限制。因为女性的择偶往往会受到男性策略的制约，所以很难确定某个特定的行为是否代表了女性的偏好，或者是她的利益和男性的利益之间的妥协。这项研究将对圈养的稀树大草原狒狒进行实验研究，以便在缺乏雄性强迫雌性或排除竞争对手的机会的情况下调查雌性交配偏好。这将通过比较自然的户外群体环境中的雌雄互动和实验条件来实现，在实验条件下，在没有男性策略的情况下，女性有机会与选择的男性交往和交配。如果雌性对配偶的选择明显受到雄性行为的限制，她们应该在实验条件下与不同的雄性和/或更多的雄性交往和交配，而不是自然主义的群体条件。这项拟议的研究是对非人灵长类雌性配偶选择进行实验研究的第一次尝试之一，也是第一次在非人类灵长类动物中研究雄性交配策略在多大程度上限制了雌性配偶选择。这一实验范式也为验证女性偏好信号提供了一个独特的机会。通过将雌性在户外群体环境中的行为与她们在实验择偶试验中的行为进行比较，研究人员将确定发情雌性在自然主义群体环境中表现出的任何行为是否是雌性对特定雄性交配偏好(即雌性偏好信号)的可靠指标。

In recent years, an increasing amount of research has been devoted to examining the importance of mate choice by females in primate sexual relationships. However, our understanding of female mate choice is limited due to the difficulty of teasing apart effects of female choice from effects of male behavior which may influence female mate choice. For example, evidence from numerous nonhuman primate species suggests that females are constrained in expressing their mating preferences due to male strategies that involve aggressive exclusion of rivals and sexual coercion of females. Because female mate choice will often be constrained by male tactics, it is difficult to ascertain whether a particular act represents the female's preference, or a compromise between her interests and those of males. This research will involve an experimental study on captive savanna baboons in order to investigate female mating preferences in the absence of male opportunities to coerce females or exclude rival males. This will be accomplished by comparing male-female interactions in a naturalistic outdoor group setting and an experimental condition in which females are given an opportunity to associate and mate with a choice of males in the absence of male tactics. If females' choices of mates are constrained significantly by male behavior, they should associate and mate with different males and/or a greater number of males under experimental conditions than naturalistic group conditions. The proposed research is one of the first attempts to examine nonhuman primate female mate choice experimentally and the first study in a nonhuman primate to investigate the extent to which male mating tactics constrain female mate choice. This experimental paradigm also provides a unique opportunity for validating female preference signals. By comparing females' behavior in the outdoor group setting with their behavior during experimental mate-choice trials, the researchers will determine whether any behaviors exhibited by estrous females in the naturalistic group setting are reliable indicators of female mating preferences for particular males (i.e. female preference signals).